Small Mobile crowd illustrates challenge as Occupy group heads for Philadelphia gathering

View full sizeTravis Cummins, a member of the Occupy Mobile group, signs an Occupy Caravan 2012 poster on Thursday, June 21, 2012, in Mobile, Alabama. Cummins and others came out to Spanish Plaza downtown to show support of Occupy protesters on their way to a national gathering in Philadelphia. (Press-Register/Brendan Kirby)

MOBILE, Alabama — The movement fueled by rage against Wall Street greed stopped by here today, but it was less an occupation than a drive by.

The Occupy Caravan stopped at Spanish Plaza downtown and mingled with a handful of folks from local Occupy groups before heading north to stops in other Alabama cities. The group plans to make it to Philadelphia for national Occupy get-together June 30.

“National Gathering. Don’t say convention,” said one protester, correcting another person’s description of the Philly event.

In all, fewer than 2 dozen people showed today. That included 6 local residents, none of whom joined the larger group for the trek north.

All of the criticisms that have followed the Occupy movement since protesters launched it last year with a round-the-clock occupation of Zuccotti Park near Wall Street were on display at today’s small gathering — a lack of focus, failure to agree on specific goals, no coordinated message, etc.

“We’re all a little confused, course, about the problems that we face,” said Foley resident Travis Cummins, speaking about the great challenges facing America. “We don’t know the answer. We’re trying to work towards one.”

Cummins, 26, was a computer science student when he got involved in the Fairhope Occupy group in September. He participated in a 190-mile walk to Montgomery in March to protest the sales tax on groceries.

Cummins acknowledged that crowds at Occupy events have grown smaller in recent months but said members of the movement have concentrated on planning, coordinating and other behind-the-scenes work.

“It’s not so much about the numbers. It’s about hearts and minds,” he said.

Ben Faure, who joined the Occupy movement in Wichita, Kansas, and has been traveling with the caravan, said fighting for broader ideals of social and economic justice always has been more important than lobbying for laws.

“We came together because we knew something wasn’t right,” the 19-year-old Slidell, Louisiana, native said. “This movement is grounded on anarchist principles.”

View full sizeMichael Levitin talks on a cell phone on Thursday, June 22, 2012, in Mobile, Alabama. He is one of a number of Occupy protesters who stopped in the city's Spanish Plaza with a caravan making its way to a national Occupy gathering in Philadelphia. (Press-Register/Brendan Kirby)

Not everyone at Spanish Plaza was vague about what the movement’s goals should be, though. Former freelance journalist Michael Levitin handed out a sheet of specific policy proposals ranging from tax policy to reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that paved the way for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

“Occupy is entering a new phase. In the beginning, it was an explosion of rage,” he said. “Americans think the Occupy movement went away. ... We’re not going away by any means.”

Levitin, who runs a website called the Occupied Wall Street Journal, said a “federally coordinated assault on the first genuinely democratic movement in this country in decades” temporarily had knocked the movement off stride. But he predicted it would only grow stronger.

Although Levitin came armed with a list of legislation he’d like to see enacted, he was not about to abandon the movement’s aversion to traditional politics. He said Occupy members have no desire to run for political office or sponsor candidates. True change, he said, only can take hold of a corrupt political system when people’s minds change.

That is precisely the attitude that Cummins said first attracted him to the movement.

“They were doing something other than advocating voting for another politician,” he said.

Mobile resident Julie Andrianopoulos, 51, said her journey to the Occupy movement came after her family experienced economic hardship. She said her husband lost his chemical operator job after his company moved overseas (only to later return and give him back his position). She said her sons, who studied English and musical arts, respectively, have been unable to find full-time employment.

“I have 2 sons who are college graduates who have 40-50,000 dollars in debt and have part-time jobs,” she said.